2021/07/09 by Art F. White, Alex E. Blum
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Groundwater and Isotope Geochemistry #Groundwater flow and contamination studies #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
paper · doi:10.1201/9780203734049-13
openalex publication_date 2021/07/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Climatic effects on chemical weathering are evaluated by correlating variations in solute concentrations and fluxes with temperature, precipitation, runoff, and evapotranspiration (ET) for a world-wide distribution of 68 watersheds underlain by granitoid-type rocks. Chemical fluxes for SiO 2 and Na exhibit statistical increases with precipitation, runoff, and temperature. In contrast, K, Ca, and Mg fluxes exhibit no climatic correlation, implying variabilities dominated by processes such as nutrient cycling and soil ion exchange reactions. An optimization model defines the reinforcing effects of climate by exponentially increasing the slope of a linear precipitation function as temperature increases, and by linearly increasing the intercept of an exponential Arrenhius temperature function as precipitation increases. The respective SiO 2 and Na activation energies calculated from this model are 62 and 70 kJ•mol -1 . Such a climatic reenforcement model provides a simple analog for the use of watershed data for calibrating a weathering feedback in climate models.